Exactly...This whole thing is just more of the drama that the customer relations arm of the UO team has perpetuated for years. Sad...haha. But you see, therein lies the hypocrisy. Stratics has special exceptions
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New URL Policy Revealed - UOGuide Complies (EA Rejects) [Updated Again, long title]
- Thread starter JC the Builder
- Start date
- Watchers 6
A
Amathist of PoC
Guest
One would assume that is because of a long standing relationship between stratics staff and ea and that they work together for the sake of the community.haha. But you see, therein lies the hypocrisy. Stratics has special exceptions
You can not expect them to do that with everyone, it just would not be feasible the staffing issues would be huge. So they picked the longest standing community forums and source of information for the ultiam and other ea games.
I have also not seen anything on stratics to BUY I see alot of free games advertised and that is different no one is making a profit from that.
There is really no way to show that the money is going to upkeep UOGuide. This isn't like a business where I have the ledger and spreadsheets. I just pay what it costs to run the site and take donations. I can say the donations I have gotten over the last ~2 years don't even come close to paying the full cost of the website. The margin is hundreds of dollars. By this time next year it may be in the thousands.
A
AesSedai
Guest
(this was in reference to the suggestion that we could always say goto uoguide you can find it on uo.com/fof****)
- Yeah, that bothers me some too. Who is to say a GM would not pull the trigger on that.
I've been thinking about what Jeremy said regarding that method of mentioning a site. It has me a bit confused: The only thing I can think of is that she suggested it was a possibility as long as JC pulled ads and/or this button that leads to the purchase of game items for cash.
- I don't think it is perfect by any means, but I do think it makes a lot of sense. It sucks that some good sites out there cannot be mentioned; but it is good that some really bad sites cannot be mentioned.
JC:
I was thinking the exact same thing - you can request in-game donations for and from your site without running into any issues, right? Then you could get rid of these in-game donations for cash on your own (that wouldn't break any rules since we can sell/buy stuff for cash, but we just can't advertise anything related to it, or link to it, when in-game). Heck you could probably even mention on your site what items you have available for 'an in-game exchange, in order to help support your website', and then just take the conversation privately to talk about your cash exchange rate, rather than selling the items directly on your site (assuming that's what you have setup, I haven't checked it all out).
Ex: If you're unloading gold, suggest an item that you'd like in exchange. If you're unloading items, suggest an amount of gold you'd like in exchange. Then take it private and tell them your gold to cash conversion rate...?
Not too much fun that you can't be bluntly upfront, but it could work..
A
Amathist of PoC
Guest
Have you checked free hosts out or are you assuming that to be the case? Also have you considered going in with other fan sites and cutting costs between the owners - 4 sites one host thats $25 each a month.
Or as Jermy said selling advertising there are ways to do it that do not break TOS and she has said she is happy to help those who want it to set it up.
A
Anjeel
Guest
And that is the problem with the UO fan site submission being down for so long. How would it have been possible for JC to form a long standing relationship when UO was in a "steady" relationship with stratics. Looking at another fansite was probably considered cheating haha
You dont think anyone is making a profit from the free games advertised? I think you may be a little deluded there. Do you think Stratics posts those banner ads for free?
To everyone suggesting I just go with the item donation route: There was a section in the shoppe giving details for people to donate items that I could then list for sale. I never received even a single message about someone wanting to donate an item. The harder it is for people to donate, the less likely they are to do so.
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Amathist of PoC
Guest
Exactly you can not say or verify where the money has come from or gone to - it is only your word that it covers part of the cost not all.......for all anyone else knows you cold be sitting on a money maker given how much traffic you implied the site has......and ea have no way of telling this thus the rule there to protect everyone not just from your site but from other sites that ask for donations too.
But as Jeremy said she is happy to work with you about funding the site in a way that is TOS compliant - you really can not get a better offer and rather then ranting I would be contacting her asap to try and get said help.
Either that or your options are free sites, paying the whole cost yourself, going in with other site owners or submitting all your guides to stratics where they host them for you.
A
Amathist of PoC
Guest
ahh but you see JC could do the same thing those said ADs do not violate TOS because they are not selling anything they simply advertise free games...if stratics receives money for the add placement which I am sure they do that is fine but it is not breaking TOS because it is not advertised as them taking the money and does not say GIVE ME MONEY in any way.And that is the problem with the UO fan site submission being down for so long. How would it have been possible for JC to form a long standing relationship when UO was in a "steady" relationship with stratics. Looking at another fansite was probably considered cheating haha
You dont think anyone is making a profit from the free games advertised? I think you may be a little deluded there. Do you think Stratics posts those banner ads for free?
Anyone who has run a website with decent traffic knows what it costs. You clearly don't.
A
Anjeel
Guest
I wonder when stratics is going to hire you
. There are lots of things that are possible and last I knew, you could sell items legally, just for some inane reason, you cant "say" you are selling them.
A
Amathist of PoC
Guest
Your right I don't off the top of my head, because any site I have ran or been a part of has worked to cover its cost by advertisments or my husband or my self have just paid for it.
Your reply I am assuming is ment to be snippy, or at least comes across with a certain tone. But the fact is I have just shown you have not thought out side the box and rather then trying a different way or concidering other options your choice is to rant and rave about unfair treatment towards you even though it applies to everyone and is for good reason.
Firstly no thanks I have a job, and just because I can see reason does not mean I am not disadvanaged by the rules either. My own guild site has stopped being advertised for recruiting in the last couple of weeks, while we tried to find out what was acceptable and what was not. And during that time I have worked to make sure it is TOS compliant.
Ask Jermey she has recived at least 3 pms from me and 1 email and I have also contacted other staff members on other forums to get a straight answer. So that I could work within the rules. And make sure my site was doing the right thing.
Amathist ... you do not seem to get what is being said about the "free hosting" option. There is no free hosting site that would support the size or traffic of uoguide.com
None.
And ... if there were? They would post their own banner ads all over the site, thus making it violate the TOS ....
And speaking of hypocrisy ... do you not see the irony in you saying "there should be no exceptions for one site over another" and then saying "but it is okay if stratics is an exception"? Probably not ....
None.
And ... if there were? They would post their own banner ads all over the site, thus making it violate the TOS ....
And speaking of hypocrisy ... do you not see the irony in you saying "there should be no exceptions for one site over another" and then saying "but it is okay if stratics is an exception"? Probably not ....
R
Richtor Darkbane
Guest
This blanket policy has to stop.
Yes URLs in game have great potential to be abused, and should be dealt with at which time they are abused. Punishing all fansites because of hackers/scammers/keyloggers that they have NOTHING to do with by not letting them share the URL for there site in game is just crazy.
This is laziness in the worst way, if someone is spamming, or giving out malicious URL's then that person and there account should be dealt with.
I implore you, don't kill fansites. Please!
(I can't believe I agree with beefybones for once...)
A
Amathist of PoC
Guest
Did you not see where I mentioned other options other then the free hosting one? I also asked if he had checked into that or just assumed but he gave no direct answer.
Did you also not see where I said I have not seen stratics advertise items for sale - that I only see the banners for free game ads and that does not break TOS. There for they are not an exception so there is no irony or hypocrisy.
Maybe perhaps stratics took Jeremy or ea up on the offer to help make there site feasible and apply to the TOS. - an offer that has also been extended to JC in this thread.
R
Richtor Darkbane
Guest
Apparently you aren't familiar with the way web hosting works, let me put it in analogical form for you....pizza.
4 fansites want to share a pizza... Fansite 1 is currently eating half the pizza where there at, fansite 2 is eating the same amount where they are, fansite 3 eats a whole pizza! and fansite 4 eats 1/4th of a pizza. Now we can bring all 4 of them together but we are probably going to need more pizza, which is going to cost more money. In the long run you are going to get the amount of pizza that you pay for and if you only want to pay for 1 pizza and combined you eat 2.25 pizzas, someone is going hungry.
In other words: If you combine several fansites the bandwidth increases, storage increases, and service fees increase, so in the end, it's going to cost around the same amount, and on top of all that you would have to compromise security.
So let me ask you what you asked JC, Did you research your suggestion before you suggested it?
They are so afraid someone is going to make some sort of revenue off of this game and it won't be them. So I ask, any fansite out there that is making a profit off of there UO fansite please come forward and reply to this post, better yet, any fansite that is even making enough off of ads and donations to pay for there web hosting service come forward. Quit going after fansites and crackdown on the illigal freeshards and scammers!
I remember UO.COM having official UO forums. They were a pain to log into because you had to first log into your account and then create a board name (seperate from your account name) and people ended up just using this site instead. Eventually the devs started addressing issues here and made these the official forums. If there are still official uo forums there, noone really posts there. I could of course be having one of my old man memories that never really happened again but this one is pretty clear.
This blanket policy has to stop.
Yes URLs in game have great potential to be abused, and should be dealt with at which time they are abused. Punishing all fansites because of hackers/scammers/keyloggers that they have NOTHING to do with by not letting them share the URL for there site in game is just crazy.
This is laziness in the worst way, if someone is spamming, or giving out malicious URL's then that person and there account should be dealt with.
I implore you, don't kill fansites. Please!
(I can't believe I agree with beefybones for once...)
So if some one makes a site UOxxxx.com that has no advertiving or selling of gold that is ok to link? What is that is the site that has the keyloger and trogens in it?
Yes, they had official forums. No, they did not just die out. There were ALOT of posters still at the time they were closed. They were closed, if I recall correctly, to "conserve" resources. At that time Stratics was named the official forums for UO. Since that time, the official forums status has been revoked.
J
Jeremy
Guest
Why on earth would making a phishing-style uo site be ok? I'm confused as to where that idea came from.
color me cornfuzzled again. Where was that statement made?
Apparently UOForums accepting donations is A-OK, but UOGuide is not. Jeremy wrote:
http://www.uoforums.com/f580/uoforums-good-to-go-on-url-53024/Jeremy said:
J
Jeremy
Guest
I'm sorry - where are they requesting donations?
http://www.uoforums.com/view.php?pg=info_donate
For me, it's directly in the top center. "Rules/Donate"
J
Jeremy
Guest
Ah, I see. My fault!
I guess UOForums is illegal now, as well.
R
Richtor Darkbane
Guest
Actually the official UO.com forums were not a pain I used them alot, having to make a board name by logging into your account first kept people from abusing the boards with spam and such, because you had to have an account to post. People ended up using this site instead because UO closed down it's forums due to lack of resources (time, mods, etc.). I was there when they closed them. These forums were announced to be official because this is where the community moved to. I remember it clearly. Now there is no official forum, which is ridiculous IMO.
Jeremy, can I make a suggestion? I know my sig currently has a jester hat but try to take me seriously *winks*
Can we put all this url stuff on hold for a bit and let you research a better way of handling all this? It's not fair to you to expect off the cuff answers and it's not fair to us to not be able to have clear, decisive answers on who exactly can and cannot use a url link in game. My fear is it will be a shot gun answer of "fine then no one post any url at all." Then everyone loses, including people's credibility. Fansites enhance gaming for so many of us, let's find a better solution than what is currently presented.
Can we put all this url stuff on hold for a bit and let you research a better way of handling all this? It's not fair to you to expect off the cuff answers and it's not fair to us to not be able to have clear, decisive answers on who exactly can and cannot use a url link in game. My fear is it will be a shot gun answer of "fine then no one post any url at all." Then everyone loses, including people's credibility. Fansites enhance gaming for so many of us, let's find a better solution than what is currently presented.
J
Jeremy
Guest
"No one post any URL at all" is very close to being the case - there just aren't many, other than small guild sites, that don't have some form of advertising/solicitation on them somewhere.
A
AesSedai
Guest
- Aye, what Richtor D said.
So does this confirm the question that several have asked in this thread? Namely, whether or not it is a bannable offense to give out a url to Stratics in-game?
Would you consider then readdressing approved Fansites? This was not an issue nor a problem before Sanya made that decision. I daresay that decision could be yours now or you can at least appeal to whoever does decide on behalf of us players?
A
Anjeel
Guest
Then perhaps you guys need to come to grips with the fact that it is a part of UO life. Has been for many years, and always will be, whether you choose to acknowledge it or condone it. The practically blanket no URL thing is just plain ridiculous and banning or suspending people for actions that have been legal for the past 10 years is beyond belief.
J
Jeremy
Guest
Stratics and the UO Pro sites are the only official exceptions to the rule at this time. That doesn't mean it's impossible to comply, just that there aren't any other specific special cases.
A
AesSedai
Guest
- Yeesh. Thx again for being our valiant messenger Jeremy
(Anybody have a picture of Milla J.?)
(Anybody have a picture of Milla J.?)
This all still is not making sense to many (obviously)... Can you again? state the reasons for this. I have never seen anything like this from any other company. Darn near every web site out there has some form of advertising/solicitation whether the site is UO related or not.
-- Very confused.
A
Anjeel
Guest
And that is the problem that we (I say we because I think this is how others feel though I could be very wrong) have with this. A blanket no no to URLs other than the "official exceptions". Do you not see anything wrong with that. Stratics is great but every other fansite is trash is basically how a position like that looks. How can any site gain true legitimacy when you (Company) refuse to acknowledge that it may indeed be someone that cares about the game. It has gone so far as to say if you create a fansite you are risking the playerbase of UO and that owner of said fansite is personally responsible for the suspensions of all that reccomend people go to it.
I think this is a trickle down effect issue of people coming into UO without understanding the player base is not the same as DAoC. You have someone making the decison of no fansites that may work for DAoC but clearly will not work this late in the game for UO. The trickle down? We now have GMs who make decisions without adequate knowledge of UO and it's history. What some players have done for years they are no longer able to do but will not know this until a GM smacks em on the nose with a banhammer.
I petition you Jeremy to please address this with the suits BEFORE Stygian Abyss comes out and players are directing your new players to urls without knowledge that what they do is wrong. Make a fansite program where the site has to comply with your standards to make it url worthy.
I petition you Jeremy to please address this with the suits BEFORE Stygian Abyss comes out and players are directing your new players to urls without knowledge that what they do is wrong. Make a fansite program where the site has to comply with your standards to make it url worthy.
And you don't seem to see how ridiculous that is?
The whole "UO Pro" thing is a joke since EA long ago turned off the program, and as you folks are clearly hellbent on keeping people from mentioning URLs, I have to wonder just what it is you're afraid of happening over there.
I'm not even sure how a sane, logical person can hold a conversation using the words you have thus far, and still think it's a justified stance. MANY places have a ban on advertising things. I know of, well, right now, only ONE place that has a blanket ban on mentioning anything that might remotely mention something about selling something else on it.
You guys really are pushing the buck here.
What scares me is that you seem happy to do it.
R
Richtor Darkbane
Guest
Please will you guys do the right thing here for your subscribers?
I agree with AirmidCecht, take the necessary time to come up with a solution here and get back to us. There are many options aside from excluding fansites completely from the game. What about bringing back the fansite page, with a simple numbered table set up like this:
http://i38.***********/2h7fi8j.jpg
And instead of linking directly to URLs players could direct people to UO.com fansite section and tell them it's site #4 for example. If something goes against the rules on a site, it could be flagged for review with a report link.
:bowdown:
I agree with AirmidCecht, take the necessary time to come up with a solution here and get back to us. There are many options aside from excluding fansites completely from the game. What about bringing back the fansite page, with a simple numbered table set up like this:
http://i38.***********/2h7fi8j.jpg
And instead of linking directly to URLs players could direct people to UO.com fansite section and tell them it's site #4 for example. If something goes against the rules on a site, it could be flagged for review with a report link.
:bowdown:
Some internet providers give you like 50 or more MB to build large websites. When I said personal it was ment that you couldn't build a commerial website example like kmarts. Now since you dont own UO your website falls under personal and not commercial. Its personal because its a guide showing players how to play.Some places give you one main email that would be who your accounts name is under ( never use), and like 5 or 6 more email accounts and each has 50 or more MBs to work with. Lets say you need like 100 mbs for uoguide you would have to make 2 email accounts to build it. but seriously check out what your internet provider offers and find out the website name to register at mine is comcast(dot)net, and go sign in make a 2nd email account log out and sign in to your 2nd email account and build a webpage and see what it looks like.
J
Jeremy
Guest
Guys, I understand that this policy is generating a lot of controversy, and, like all policies, it may get changed in the future. Right now, though, my goal is to make sure everybody understands what it is at this moment, so no one else gets banned unexpectedly. I'm not in a position to debate its merits right now, so while I hear you, I can't really respond to those concerns until I've had some time to bring them to people internally.
A
Anjeel
Guest
And like all policies, if it has been seen to have failed or hurt the community, it should be revised or removed immediately.
...and thats that....
If you can't afford to run a fansite out of your own pocket then don't run a fansite. Personally, i like uoguide (among other fansites) but if helping them somehow hurts them to the point that they feel they have to ban you then they don't deserve it. Let's see where this game goes without it's fansites.
If you can't afford to run a fansite out of your own pocket then don't run a fansite. Personally, i like uoguide (among other fansites) but if helping them somehow hurts them to the point that they feel they have to ban you then they don't deserve it. Let's see where this game goes without it's fansites.
As long as you intend to address this internally then my only request beyond that is will you make it so your players see this policy on their splashscreen on login so they are aware of it? Not just uo.com but in bold upon login so they know that while it is something they once considered the "norm" it is not okay until further notice?
Apparently, you misunderstand the situation. The issue is not how much hard drive space you get to store the website (UOGuide has 50GB [50,000MB] of space to work with) because hard drive space is cheap.
What is not cheap, however, and what is the actual issue at hand here, is bandwidth costs. You can have a full 50GB of website content, and if 0 people visit your site, it will barely cost your host anything. Now imagine that your site gets nearly 3,500,000 page views like UOGuide has received. Now let's imagine that each page on your website is about 50KB in size. Those 3,500,000 page views then translate into 175GB (175,000MB) that has to be transferred from the host's server to the various people viewing the site. That is what costs the big money.
If you've answered my question from earlier, I missed it, I'm sorry.
The question was....Is it permissible to advertise a site without giving away the URL? For example, can I tell a noob to "find the UO Guide," as opposed to telling him to "go to UOGUIDE.com?"
This is not an attempt to bait or trap you or anything. It is an honest attempt to learn the policy and function within it.
-Galen's player
Thank you, Jeremy, for your candor, and for your willingness TO take it to the people that make these decisions. This is really all we ask of you.
Cogniac actually has it half right, Bandwidth is an issue. However it is not the main issue. UOGuide is a dynamic website which requires a lot of processing power, physical memory and database accessing. That is what costs the big bucks.